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Born in 1959? Here's the world you arrived into

In 1959, "The Battle of New Orleans" topped the charts, Ben-Hur packed theaters, a stamp cost 4¢, the average home went for about $11,450.

What things cost in 1959

A $0.31 gallon of gas in 1959 has the buying power of roughly $3.30 in 2024 dollars, and the $0.72 movie ticket works out to about $7.70 today.

The biggest moments of 1959

• Alaska and Hawaii joined the Union in 1959, becoming the 49th and 50th states.
• The Twilight Zone premiered in October 1959, inviting viewers into another dimension.
• Bonanza debuted as one of the first westerns broadcast in color.

• NASA introduced the Mercury Seven astronauts in April 1959, and America had brand-new heroes in silver suits.
• Vice President Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev sparred in the famous "Kitchen Debate" at a model American home in Moscow.
• The St. Lawrence Seaway opened in June 1959, letting ocean-going ships sail all the way into the Great Lakes.

Toys, TV & trends of 1959

• The Barbie doll made her debut at the New York Toy Fair in March 1959.
• Rocky and Bullwinkle arrived on TV in November 1959 with Rocky and His Friends.
• Kids begged for a trip to see Disney's lavish animated fairy tale Sleeping Beauty.

• Rawhide premiered in January 1959, with a young Clint Eastwood riding drag as Rowdy Yates.
• Dennis the Menace leapt from the comics page to CBS in October 1959, with Jay North gleefully exasperating poor Mr. Wilson.
• The first commercially made skateboards went on sale in 1959, as surf shops began stocking the Roller Derby Skate Board.

The music scene

The year opened in sorrow when a small-plane crash on February 3 took Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper — a loss later remembered as "the day the music died." Yet new beginnings abounded: in Detroit, Berry Gordy borrowed $800 from his family and founded the record company that would become Motown, while the Drifters' "There Goes My Baby" daringly wrapped rhythm and blues in lush orchestral strings.

At the movies

Ben-Hur galloped to a record 11 Academy Awards, its famous chariot race staged on a colossal arena set with thousands of extras. Some Like It Hot became a smash even though it was released without Production Code approval — a sign the old censorship rules were crumbling. And Doris Day and Rock Hudson traded party-line banter in Pillow Talk, the year's frothiest hit.

Cartoons kids loved

• Rocky and His Friends (Rocky & Bullwinkle)
• The Quick Draw McGraw Show
• Sleeping Beauty (Disney)

By 1959 original television animation was a full-fledged boom, with Hanna-Barbera's studio turning out new characters every season. Jay Ward's moose-and-squirrel wit was something else entirely — puns and satire pitched as much at parents as at kids. Disney's Sleeping Beauty, by contrast, was a hand-inked widescreen epic six years in the making, so costly that the studio would not attempt another fairy tale for three decades.

The world in 1959

• World population: about 3.0 billion
• U.S. President: Dwight D. Eisenhower
• Alaska and Hawaii became the 49th and 50th U.S. states in 1959.

• Fidel Castro's forces took power in Cuba on New Year's Day 1959.
• The Soviet probe Luna 3 photographed the far side of the Moon for the very first time in October 1959.
• Twelve nations signed the Antarctic Treaty in December 1959, setting the continent aside for peaceful scientific research.

1959 birthday questions

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